


4. Silver Strands

by sahiya



Series: Five Times the Doctor Really Did Not Understand Humans and One Time He Did [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Aging, Bittersweet, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever told the Doctor it was impolite to remark on certain signs of human aging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4. Silver Strands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eve11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eve11/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Eve11!
> 
> This takes place somewhere in the first half of S7. Don't think about it too hard.

Over several centuries of traveling with humans, the Doctor had learned a thing or two about their care and feeding. Regular meals, that was key; he himself could go for several days without eating, but a human would get extremely grouchy and eventually topple over. Sleeping was also important; it didn’t need to be all in a row, but seven or eight in a twenty-four hour cycle was ideal. 

But there were other things that the Doctor didn’t learn at all until he started traveling with the Ponds. Truth be told, he’d never had companions quite like them - companions who came and went and had their own lives. It’d never occurred to him that he could. But at some point, he realized, he’d lost track of how long it had been for them. A decade? Two? He didn’t know, and he supposed it didn’t matter. 

Until the day he looked up and Amy had silver in her hair. It wasn’t much, hardly noticeable at all, but the Doctor’s eyes were sharper than most. 

“What’s that?” he asked, reach out to touch and then tug on it. 

“Oi,” she said, slapping his hand away. “That hurts. And don’t go pulling it out or two more will grow in its place.”

The Doctor frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, it’s what my mum says.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Human believe the most ridiculous things. But,” he paused, still staring at it. It was only a few strands, but it was unmistakable. “But you have gray hair.”

“Yes, Doctor, thank you, I hadn’t noticed,” she snapped. “We can’t all look like we’re in our late twenties forever, now, can we?”

“I wasn’t -”

“Oh _shut it_ ,” she said, and stomped out of the console room and into the depths of the TARDIS. 

Mouth hanging open, the Doctor turned to look at Rory, who was pinching the bridge of his nose. “What just happened?” the Doctor asked, bewildered. “All I did -”

“- was point out that she’s getting older and it shows,” Rory finished. “Smooth, Doctor. Very smooth.” The Doctor blinked, and Rory sighed. “It’s not really your fault, I guess. You put your foot in it without realizing it was there.”

“I . . . see,” the Doctor said, slowly. But then he shook his head, “Nope, I don’t see. Why would she get so upset over a few gray hairs? My hair was completely white in my third regeneration - well, and my first, but that was different - anyway, the point is, I didn’t go around shouting at people who pointed it out.”

“You also _have_ regenerations,” Rory pointed out. “We don’t.”

The Doctor snapped his mouth shut. “Oh.”

“Amy’s getting older. We both are. She doesn’t like the gray hair because it’s a reminder.” Rory sighed. “And of course it doesn’t help that you never change at all. She was twenty-one when we started traveling with you, and you looked older than she did, then. How much older than you does she look now? I know none of it matters to you,” he added, before the Doctor could open his mouth to say exactly that, “but it matters to us. It matters to her. Can you understand that?”

This, the Doctor thought, was probably why he’d never had companions like Amy and Rory before. A year, maybe two, and then his companions went back to their lives. He might drop in now and again, as he had with the Brigadier, but this part of things - this messy, uncomfortable part of things - was never his concern. He’d made sure of that. Until now. 

“I should go talk to her,” the Doctor said, awkwardly. 

“That might help,” Rory said, judiciously. “But try not to muck it up worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” the Doctor said dryly, and went in search of Amy. 

He found her in the bathroom of her and Rory’s suite. Her hair was damp, and she was combing it out, carefully keeping it away from her face. In front of her, the Doctor saw, was a box of dye from the twenty-fifth century that was guaranteed to match to your natural hair color, no matter what it was. 

“Can I help you, Doctor?” Amy asked after a moment, in an overly even tone. 

“I, uh, wanted to say I was sorry,” the Doctor said, trying not to shuffle his feet like a naughty schoolboy. “I didn’t realize.”

“No,” she sighed, “I suppose you didn’t.” She shrugged but kept her eyes on her own reflection. “Reckon I needed to do this anyway. If you’re noticing, then so are other people.”

“But why?” the Doctor asked, baffled all over again. “What does it matter how old other people think you are?”

Amy shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t yet. But Rory and I are older than our friends back home. None of them are going gray. It makes me wonder what it’ll be like when they’re in their thirties and Rory and I are pushing fifty.”

“Oh,” the Doctor said, stymied. He swallowed and forced himself to ask. “Do you want to stop? Stop traveling, I mean?”

She looked up then and caught his eye in the bathroom mirror. “Of course I don’t, you idiot.”

“But then -”

“It’s just hard sometimes,” she said. She set the comb in the sink and then pulled her hair away from her face with a clip. She turned to face him and the Doctor forced himself to look at her, really look at her, and see how she’d changed. There were lines now where before there had been smooth skin, lines that spoke mostly of laughter but also of sorrow. “It’s hard to balance this life here with you with our life on Earth. I don’t like to think about the future, but then I look in the mirror and I can’t _not_. And you,” she added with a shrug, “you don’t have to think about the future, about what will happen when you can’t run anymore.”

The Doctor didn’t know what to say. “Never, Pond,” he tried, but she just looked at him and shook her head, then stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. 

“That’s sweet of you to say,” she said. “But we both know it isn’t true. Someday, Rory and I will stop running, either because we want to or because we have to.”

He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t let that happen. He _could_ stop it; there were all sorts of life-extending treatments in the future, and they were all accessible to him with the TARDIS. But he somehow knew that even if he offered, they would both refuse. So instead, he said, voice rough, “But not today.”

“But not today,” she agreed. She reached down and squeezed his hand. “Come on, Doctor,” she said. “Let’s have an adventure.”

 _Humans_ , the Doctor thought, staring after Amy as she left him behind in her and Rory’s suite. They lived such finite lives, and yet they lived them so boldly. He wasn’t sure he’d be brave enough to live the way his humans did if he had so little time allotted to him. 

But if Amy was willing to put such thoughts off for another day, then he was, too. She was right, he thought, finally spurring himself into motion. It was time for an adventure.


End file.
